Joshua Bassett Opened Up About Childhood Abuse And Past Health Crisis

Disney star Joshua Bassettrecently appeared in a candid interview talking about the health challenges he faced last year. The American singer is known for his role as Ricky Bowen in the Disney show "High School Musical: The Musical: The Series."

The actor was previously in a relationship with his "HSMTMTS" co-star Olivia Rodrigo, but the couple called it quits not long after. Rodrigo released "Driver's License," which was strongly speculated to be about their relationship. The song's popularity heralded a lot of hate towards Bassett, which eventually led to death threats.

The artist recently opened up to his health challenges during that time and how eventually he got charted at a hospital. The stress and anxiety had him battling with heart failure. Bassett also mentioned the abuse he went through as a child and teen.

Bassett recently came under public scrutiny with the release of the hit song "Driver's License" by Olivia Rodrigo. The song was allegedly about their breakup, although neither of them ever confirmed this. The song's popularity brought tremendous hate Bassett's way, which eventually landed him in the hospital battling heart failure.

In an interview with People, the "HSMTMTS" star talked about what he went through at that time leading up to the hospitalization. He said, "If I look at my last year, the difference between the good days and the not good days comes down to whether I took time for myself."

The actor added, "In this last year, a lot of my biggest fears came true. But in that, I found that I'll always be OK, if not better off." Bassett revealed that he kept feeling "worse and worse" the week before going to the hospital. "I was sleeping 16 to 20 hours a day. I couldn't even stand up for longer than 30 seconds," he said.

Rodrigo's popular song "Driver's License" was closely followed by Bassett's own single. The actor released "Lie Lie Lie" just six days after the "Sour" artist's single. When asked, he said the song was already slated to be released on that day long before then and wasn't a response to "Driver's License."

Bassett admitted that instead of being excited about the song release, he felt something very different. He said, "I felt my heart literally failing. I was like, 'this isn't just anxiety. This is bad.'" He ended up being taken to the hospital by a "HSMTMTS" producer and was diagnosed with septic shock.

He continued, "The doctors were like, 'if you hadn't checked in within 12 hours, you would have died in your apartment… it's wild that I was this close to taking another nap." According to the doctor, the illness was apparently brought on by stress.

The artist recovered nine days but was apparently "even more depressed and stressed" after. "I had a panic attack every single day." During that time, he penned down "Crisis," "Secret," and "Set Me Free," which he later revealed was very "stressful and hard" instead of being therapeutic.

Bassett said, "People had this mentality like, 'Oh, you were going through so much, so what you were making must have been so great.' While, yes I was able to make something out of my pain, a lot of times it was just me grieving and going through all these different feelings."

The songs weren't released till December last year because the actor didn't want to fuel more rumors surrounding him and Rodrigo. The week ended up being worst than the entire year for Bassett.

"I got what I had to say off of my chest, but it brought all that stuff back up, and the healing isn't very linear," he said. The actor eventually found a solid footing with the help of his therapist and long periods of yoga and meditation.

Bassett revealed that his therapy session helped him deal with the trauma he suffered from being sexually abused as a child and teenager. The identities of his abusers aren't known, but the songwriter disclosed that he was abused between the ages of 5 to 9 by a relative, and an older man from a theater group abused him years later.

During the interview, Bassett mentioned that his difficulty in processing the entire experience was because he "went into pure shock." "I'm still very much in the middle of the whole process, and I think it is a lifelong thing, but I'm learning to peel back the layers," he said.

According to Bassett, his reason for opening up to his story now was because he wanted to help people who didn't have a platform like he does. "If I, a person with a platform, got treated like that, what would happen to a person in a small town? I won't shut up about this until we're far past that."